The 2022 Gateways Music Festival presents a free screening of The Caged Bird: The Life and Music of Florence B. Price and the Paul J. Burgett Lecture by Cory Hunter, Ph.D., on "Black Idioms in the Music of Florence B. Price." Gateways Music Festival aims to be a multi-faceted resource primarily for classical musicians of African descent and a source of inspiration, enlightenment, and engagement for communities—especially communities underrepresented in classical music.

Registration is required. 

Attendees are required to show proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination and booster and must wear a CDC-recommended mask (disposable surgical, KN95, KF94, or N95) while indoors. Cloth masks alone are not permitted, but may be worn as a second layer over a disposable surgical mask.

About the Film:
Born in 1887 in Little Rock, Arkansas to extraordinary parents, Florence B. Price became the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major orchestra when the Chicago Symphony premiered her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor at the 1933 World’s Fair. Price’s remarkable achievements during the Jim Crow era are testament to her perseverance and musical gifts.  This is the inspiring story of one woman’s triumph over racism and discrimination. (One Hour.)

Gateways Music Festival expresses its gratitude to James Greeson, the producer of this film, for his permission to show it during the 2022 Festival.
Producer:  James Greeson
Associate Producer:  Dale Carpenter
Narrator: Julia Sampson
Videographers:  Dale Carpenter, James Greeson and Hayot Tuychiev
This film was supported in part by grants from the Arkansas Humanities Council, the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and the University of Arkansas.

About the Paul J. Burgett Lecture

Dr. Hunter will help contextualize the world and works of the Festival’s featured composer, Florence B. Price.

Hunter’s interactive presentation includes audience engagement and musical examples as well as a preview of Prices’ Symphony No. 3 that will be performed by the Gateways Orchestra at Kodak Hall in Rochester on April 20 and Carnegie Hall in New York City on April 24. 

Hunter received his Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Divinity, and Certificate of Music from Yale Divinity School  and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and a Ph.D. in musicology from Princeton University.  He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Frederick Douglass Institute and, in the fall of 2019, began a dual tenure track appointment as Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Rochester and Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music.